353 7 tesii>y;-iv-; 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No 

Shelt.._.„____ > 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



jfugitive Xines 



fbenr^ 5erome Stocl?art> 



x%%n-C."-^ 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



NEW YORK LONDON 

27 WEST TWENTV-THIKD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND 

Ube TKnicfcerbocfcer press 

1897 



C>^ 






Copyright, 1897 

BY 

HENRY JEROME STOCKARD 



Ubc IRnicfterbocher ptcss, mew J^orft 



TO MY WIFE. 



CONTENTS. 



"Over Their Graves" 

Write to Mother . 

" Knee-deep, Knee-deep ! " 

" The Hand that Binds the Star 

A Voice 

On Hatteras Bar 

" Fold Me Gently, Mother Earth 

All Mine Own .... 

A Lullaby 

An Evening Song 

An Autumn Song 

"Come Tenderly, O Death !" 

At Nightfall .... 

Confusing Cries 

The Song of the Angels 

A Serenade .... 

For the Nation's Dead . 

A Winter Song .... 

The Drummers .... 

A Dark Day .... 

The Mocking-Bird . 

The Song of the Whippoorwill 



PAGE 

I 

2 

3 

4 
5 
7 
9 

lO 
12 

14 
15 
17 
i8 

20 
21 
22 

23 
24 
26 
27 

29 
30 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Pallida Mors 32 

"Far, Far Away" 34 

My Pipe 35 

A Reminiscence 37 

The Hero 38 

Late at Night , . • 39 

The Review of the Dead 40 

A Christmas Memory 43 

My Fountain Pen 45 

The Home 46 

The Dead Laureate 47 

The Prayer of Life 48 

April Days 49 

When Spring and Winter Meet .... 52 

The Southern Dead 53 

The Dreamer 54 

Terra Incognita . . . . . . .55 

A Block of Marble 56 

Dies \^m 57 

At Fordham 58 

Our Race 59 

The Larger Life 60 

To a One- Armed Confederate . . . .61 
"Once More the Fall with Empty Fields and 

Sad" 62 

The Progression of the Soul .... 63 

In Age 64 

After Reading a Treasury of Sonnets . . 65 

The Dawn of Eternity 66 



CONTENTS. VI 1 

PAGE 

Bonaparte 67 

The Past 68 

The Closing Century 69 

To an Old Oak . . . . . , .70 

The Soul 71 

Imagination 72 

"As Some Mysterious Wanderer of the Skies" . 73 

To Two Friends 74 

My Library 76 

"Once as I Lay upon a Bed of Pain" . . 77 

" Nations of Earth, with One Firm Purpose Rise " 78 

The Poet 79 

The Building of the Temple .... 80 

Theocritus 81 

Washington 82 

The Unattained 83 

"When Through a Mighty Lens we Search the 

Night" 84 

Upon the Death of a Child 85 

Homer 86 

"Some Verses Carol" 87 

Shakespeare 88 

In the Lighthouse at Point Lookout, North 

Carolina 89 

An Acrostic 90 

To M. L. S 91 

Self-Exiled . . ' 92 



"OVER THEIR GRAVES." 

/^VER their graves rang once the bugle's call, 
^^ The searching shrapnel and the crashing 
ball; 
The shriek, the shock of battle, and the neigh 
Of horse ; the cries of anguish and dismay ; 
And the loud cannon's thunders that appall. 

Now through the years the brown pine-needles fall, 
The vines run riot by the old stone wall. 
By hedge, by meadow streamlet, far away, 
Over their graves. 

We love our dead where'er so held in thrall. 

Than they no Greek more bravely died, nor Gaul — 
A love that 's deathless ! — but they look to-day 
With no reproaches on us when we say, 

" Come, let us clasp your hands, we 're brothers all, 
Over their graves ! " 



WRITE TO MOTHER. 

\ 17 RITE to mother, waiting lonely 
^^ For the change to other spheres, 
Talking oft with memory only 
Of the vanished years. 

In our childhood's home she lingers. 
Far from bustling life away. 

Busy with toil-stiffened fingers 
Day on weary day. 

Slowly now the dark is falling, 
And the world fades on her sight ; 

Voices not of earth are calling 
Her across the night. 

Write to her. Soon, soon forever 
She shall travel to that shore 

Where no mails may go, whence never 
Tidings reach us more. 



" KNEE-DEEP, KNEE-DEEP ! " 

*' \^ NEE-deep, knee-deep ! " I am a child again ! 
^^ I hear the cow-bells tinkling down the lane 
The plaintive whippoorwills, the distant call 
Of quails beyond the hill where night-hawks fall 

From lambent skies to fields of golden grain. 

I hear the milkmaid's song, the clanking chain 
Of ploughman homeward bound, the lumbering wain, 
And down the darkling vale 'mid rushes tall, 
" Knee-deep, knee-deep ! " 

We 're all at home, — John, Wesley, little Jane, — 

Dead long ago, — and the boy-soldiers twain 

That sleep by purling stream or old stone wall 

In some far-off and unknown grave — we 're all 

At home with mother !— heartache gone, and pain — 

" Knee-deep, knee-deep ! " 



"THE HAND THAT BINDS THE STAR." 

T^HE Hand that binds the star 
*■ In its far centre, and around it rolls 
Through space its worlds, with never halt nor 
jar, 
No less my steps controls. 

That same unfailing Hand 

Hath led me forth from still eternity, 
'T will guide me onward through star-vistas, 
and 

I follow trustingly. 



A VOICE. 

A VOICE broke the stillness at even, 
^* When my spirit was sinking to rest ; 
It spake, as it were, out of heaven, 

More remote than the east from the west ; 
But its thin, far accents were deeper 

Than the bell of a minster may ring. 
As it said through my dreaming, — "O Sleeper, 

Give ear to the message I bring : — 

" Long, long ere this human existence, — 

This birth, life, languishing, death. — 
In a world at immeasurable distance. 

Out of time — space — came to you breath. 
You know not the path travelled hither, 

'T is covered with increate night ; 
Nor may memory's feet journey thither, 

Nor the pinions of fancy take flight. 
5 



A VOICE. 

" But now you are nearing day's margent, — 

Look away toward the hints of the dawn ! 
The night skies are paling to argent, — 

Move onward, unwavering on ! 
From the void and the formless of Never, 

Recollection interlinking the spheres, 
Your track brightens forward forever, 

Through epochs unmeasured by years." 



ON HATTERAS BAR. 

T^HE night was wild, the breakers churned, 
* In heaven's vast shone not a star ; 
Alone the light, mist-haloed, burned 
On Hatteras Bar. 

From out the scabbard of the dark 
There flashed a sudden blazing brand, 
And, grasped by some puissant hand, 

'T was thrust against a shrinking bark 
With so dire, deadly, damning might 
'T was broke to fragments dazzling white. 

Then denser sunk the lurid air, 

And cries blent with the surges' jar, 

And, stabbed, the ship clung reeling there 
On Hatteras Bar. 

The ocean massed its ancient strength. 
And hoarser raved the savage gale ; 
7 



ON HATTER AS BAR, 

To shreds was rent each helpless sail ; 
A breaker swept the vessel's length : 

It lurched, and, ghost-like, through the gloom 
It shivered, vanished to its doom. 

The souls that in the sad winds moan, 

Where lay at morn that shattered spar ! — 

That sob where plangent seas intone 
On Hatteras Bar ! 



" FOLD ME GENTLY, MOTHER EARTH." 

POLD me gently, Mother Earth, as of yore, 
^ Close, close to thy kind, forgetful breast ; 
For my day is nearly o'er, 

And the clouds are round the west ; 

I would rest 
Never, never to awaken any more ! 

Oh, so brave were the hopes the morning bore ! 

But few have been fulfilled, and darkness nears. 
Drowse me while the shadows lower ; 

Let me slumber through the years, 

To my tears, 
Never, never to awaken any more ! 

Though the spring the ruined verdure will restore. 
And call the happy birds across the deep, 

Low beneath my silent door. 

With the Dead whom none do weep. 
Let me sleep, 

Never, never to awaken any more ! 



ALL MINE OWN. 

[ THANK thee, Lord, for thy great gifts to me, 
* For, lo ! this spacious world is all mine own ; 
Not that I hold its vast estates in fee. 
Its power, its wealth unknown, 

But all is mine by a far larger right, — 

The continents, oceans, islands, cities fair. 

The temples, palaces, thrones, — mine the delight, 
While others' is the care. 

Mine are the fields of grain, the meadows' blooms. 
The vineyards where the purple clusters cling, 

And mine the far-sequestered woodland glooms 
Where nightingales do sing. 

The faery lands of sleep are mine, and mine 
Lost Edens, fabled amaranthine vales ; 



ALL MINE OWN. II 

The suns through circumambient night that shine 
On, on, when fancy fails. 

For me the birds their mellow notes outpour, 
And night winds voice their organ-tones ; the sea 

Uplifts, austere, upon the wave-worn shore, 
Its plangent threne for me. 

Light heart is mine, light foot, and slumbers light. 
And glimpse of light beyond the future's gate, 

While monarchs, whom accusing crimes affright. 
Death's dreadful summons wait. 

And not for one sole day at autumn's leave 
To thee I 'd bring my gratitude and praise, 

But from the year's brave prime, both morn and eve, 
Until its parting days. 



A LULLABY. 

T'O-NIGHT, embedded deep and warm, 
^ Beyond the reach of sifting snow, 
The cows are sheltered from the storm, 
So let the north winds blow. 
Blow, winds, blow ! 
O'er land and ocean go ! 
The cows are sheltered from the storm. 
So let the north winds blow ! 



Beneath the ermined pine-trees warm. 

The eaves with icicles a-row. 
The birds are sheltered from the storm, 
So let the north winds blow. 
Blow, winds, blow ! 
O'er land and ocean go ! 
The birds are sheltered from the storm. 
So let the north winds blow ! 



A LULLABY. I3 

Beside the blazing ingle warm, 

Bathed in the firelight's ruddy glow, 
My child is sheltered from the storm. 
So let the north winds blow. 
Blow, winds, blow ! 
O'er land and ocean go ! 
My child is sheltered from the storm. 
So let the north winds blow ! 



AN EVENING SONG. 

TTHE late dove hurtles through the dark, — 
* Good-night ! 

The firefly strikes its spectral spark, 
Comes o'er the hill the watch-dog's bark, 
The cows come lowing up the lane, 
And homeward comes the lumbering wain,- 
Good-night, good-night ! 

Earth calls her weary ones to rest, — 

Good-night ! 
The sickle moon sinks down the west, 
The shadows veil the mountain's crest, 
The fires burn low where sunk the sun. 
To sleep ! The long, long day is done, — 
Good-night, good-night ! 



14 



AN AUTUMN SONG. 

/^H, the spring called back the birds, 
^^ And touched their hearts with glee ! 
And when she spoke, the flowers awoke 
On hill and field and lea. 

And glad were the summer's songs. 

Her fruits of richest stain ; 
And sweet the dreams by her lilied streams, 

Her skies of bluest grain. 

But hail to the fall, and hail ! 

To her hills of flame and gold, 
Her starlit nights, her frost that whites 

At morning mead and wold ! 

Away to the deep brown woods. 
Where the pattering chestnuts fall, 
15 



1 6 'AN AUTUMN SONG. 

Where the matted vines with their muscadines 
Festoon the hickories tall ! 

With gun and dog for the fields ! 

And a bang for the quail that whirs ! 
Where the woodland thins, for the chinquapins 

That blink jet-black from the burs ! 

And at night for the husking, ho ! 

For the rousing songs once more ! 
With horn and hound for the glens profound 

Where the 'possum quits his door ! 

No threne for the vanished spring 

And the summer's faded blee, 
But a song of praise for the autumn days, 

And a harvest-home for me ! 



'' COME TENDERLY, O DEATH ! " 

r^OME tenderly, O Death ! 
^^ Yet not with silence palpable, but come 
To me as comes a mother to her sick, 
Dream-troubled child, singing with tone subdued 
Sweet songs that seem to its poor fevered brain 
Voiced by some far-away singer. 

And when it will not rest. 

Even as she bends above its bed, and lifts 

It to her heart where it forgets to cry, 

So do thou, Angel of Death, above me lean 

With gentleness unspeakable, and uplift 

Me in thy kind, strong arms, and croon thy song 

Until its charming cadence wind and wind 

Through all the secret passes of my soul, 

And I am stilled, and griefs are all unlearned. 

With days and months and years ! 



17 



AT NIGHTFALL. 

\ 17 HAT time the glowing day is done, 
' ' I love far down the vale to stray 
Where pine-woods cast their shadows gray 
From western slopes ere sets the sun. 

The quail's " Bob-White " rings in the copse, 
The killdee's plaint comes o'er the reeds, 
On laboring wings the crane recedes 

Till lost below the dim tree-tops. 

The rabbit, startled from the hedge, 

Bounds toward the woodlands dark ; the vole. 
With scarce a wave, swims to its hole. 

Rush-covered, nigh the water's edge. 

Upon the peaceful air is tolled 

The village bell that heavenward calls ; 



AT NIGHTFALL, 1 9 

With booming hoarse the night-hawk falls 
From lambent skies to dusky wold. 

The owl flits forth on fluffy wings, 

A phantom through the shadows dumb ; 
In thickets dense of thorn and plum 

The mocking-bird incessant sings. 

The late dove hurtles through the dark, 
And bats wheel round like mystic sprites ; 
Amid the swamp the firefly lights 

Its spectral, evanescent spark. 

The shuddering zephyr barely moves 

The boughs in wanton dalliance ; 

Vesper's oeiliads, mirrored, dance 
Along the pool's wind-chiseled grooves. 

Low sinks the sickle moon, and night 
Possesses now the vales and hills, 
For, hark ! the herald whippoorwills 

Proclaim its reign from height to height. 



n 



CONFUSING CRIES. 

DAST the night's shadows, 
^ Onward, far onward, 
Lies the day's glory 

Somewhere to sunward ! " 

Past the day's splendor, 

All things diurnal 
Merge into blackness. 

Mournful, eternal ! " 



Low lies the darkness 
O'er hill and river — 

Earth-thrown ! — and upward. 
Morning forever ! 



THE SONG OF THE ANGELS. 

TT ARK to the angels' song again, 

* -*■ Which first rang o'er Judea's plain ! 

Sing thou, my soul, the glad refrain, 

"On earth peace, good-will toward men ! " 

No tidal wave of harmony 
Rolls out to-night o'er space's sea, 
Till pulsates through eternity, 
'* On earth peace, good-will toward men ! " 

But through the spirit's deeps is rolled 
Each Christmas, while the world grows old, 
That anthem, sung to harps of gold, 
" On earth peace, good-will toward men ! " 



21 



A SERENADE. 

T^HE full moon wavers on the hills, 
* And, loosening, swims into the deep ! 
The world is whist, — for you it stills, — 
My loved one, sleep, 
Sleep ! 

The tender, purple sky is starred 

With eyes that constant sentry keep ; 
For you they hold their faithful guard, — 
My loved one, sleep. 
Sleep ! 

No troubled visions cross your dreams, 

But glimpse of lands where none do weep ! 
Be hushed as the stilly beams ! — 
My loved one, sleep, 
Sleep ! 



FOR THE NATION'S DEAD. 



A 



SONG for the Brave ! 
They fought for us and fell, — 
Went down where glaive crossed glaive, 
Shell crashed on shell, — 



The numberless Dead, 

Ranged in love-tended tiers ; 

The Unknown whose dreamless bed 
Is lost for all years ! 

For the vague, pale Throng — 
God guard and rest them well ! — 

Let praise and the voice of song 
To heaven upswell ! 



23 



A WINTER SONG. 

POR me the winter old, 
*■ The live stars' splintered light, 
The shrill winds cold that scour the wold 
Through the wild tempestuous night ! 

I love the rattling hail, 

And the snowflakes tempest-sown, 
The woods in mail that creak in the gale, 
And the night wind's baritone ! 

Now songs that the soul inspire, 
And tales as the twilight falls. 
While the crackling fire leaps higher and higher. 
And the shadows dance on the walls ! 

Or ho ! for the frozen streams, 
And a sweep on the silver floor 
24 



A WINTER SONG, 2$ 

That, winding, gleams 'neath the stars* white 
beams 
Far into the woodland hoar, 

Where the great owl calls to you 

From deep in the hooded pines, 
" Tu-whit, tu-whoo ! " where the witches brew, 

And the moon belated shines. 

Season of strenuous mirth. 

Hail, with your wealth of cheer ! 

Your deepest dearth doth hold the birth 
Of the buoyant, brave New Year ! 



THE DRUMMERS. 

\ 17 HEN the sun is low behind the hill, 
' ^ And the killdee's plaintive cry 
Comes o'er the marsh, and the whippoorwill, 
Night's herald, rings a-nigh ; 

When the bat wheels round o'er the orchard 
dumb, 

And the fire-fly lights its lamp, — 
Then the frogs wake many a rolling drum 

Far down in the reedy swamp. 

Be-thrump, te-bump, te-thrumple-te-bump ! 

They beat with all their might ; 
Te-bump, te-thrump, te-bumple-te-thrump ! 

Far on in the summer night. 



26 



A DARK DAY. 

CLY away, fly away, O Rain-Clouds ! 

Fly over the hills away, 
Unveil me the gladdening, golden sun 
Before the death of the day ! 

For sad is the sound of the breakers 
As over the reefs they comb, 

And sad is the cry of the sea-birds 
As they fly to their island home. 

But the day goes out in darkness. 
And the winds blow wild and drear, 

As if, like my soul, aweary 
With some vast weight of care. 

And all night long 'neath the vapors 
The sea on the beach intones ; 
27 



28 A DARK DA Y. 

And all night long my spirit 

With that mournful music moans. 

Oh, let me forget in my slumbers 

Eternity, life, death, hopes, and fears, 

And wander again in the glory 
Of childhood's lost sweet years ! 



THE MOCKING-BIRD. 

nrUE name thou wearest does thee grievous wrong. 
* No mimic thou ! That voice is thine alone ! 
The poets sing but strains of Shakespeare's song ; 
The birds, but notes of thine imperial own ! 



29 



THE SONG OF THE WHIPPOORWILL. 

T HEAR it blown whence the moonbeams pale are 
^ lying 

On sheltered glades beyond the western hill, 
Now rising with the freshening gale, now dying, — 
The plaint of the whippoorwill. 

It wakens in my soul such memories tender 

Of childhood's far-receding land of dreams ! 
Down lilied meads I stray in the evening's splendor, 
By willowed, wimpling streams. 

Once more the dusky toiler seeks his shealing ; 
I hear his faint, melodious song ; while there 
Across the fields the village bell is pealing 
The evening hour of prayer. 

A child at mother's knee, I now remember 

No more life's poignant pain, its burning tears, — 
30 



THE SONG OF THE WHIPPOORWILL. 3 1 

There learn of cities past the sunset's ember — 
Beyond the bourne of years. 

And hark ! blown whence the moonbeams pale are 
lying 
On sheltered glades beyond the western hill, 
Now rising with the freshening winds, now dying, — 
The plaint of the whippoorwill ! 



PALLIDA MORS. 

TT will be one to me 

* If morning touch the hills, or evening gray ; 
If springe's faint greenth shall reign, or summer's 
blee, 
Or autumn's golden tinct, or winter's hoar, — 
It will be one to me, so far away 

From sense and lime's dull shore 
My questioning spirit then shall stray, 
A perishing breath by dark Oblivion's sea, — 
A wraith dazed in the sun of some new day. 

For thou dost come a friend, 

Or if thou shudder in with cerements stoled, 
Or sweep swart as a Memphian king, or bend 
An angel fair as Titian e'er did feign, — 
For thou dost come a friend, since thou wilt 
hold 
Nepenthe for life's pain 
32 



PALLIDA MORS. 33 

Unto ray lips, and round me fold, 
Like some rich garment, peace that shall not end 
While days and months and years be onward 
rolled ! 

Be strong thy anodyne 

To drowse me for that long, mysterious sleep ! 
Give me to quaff till, like a potent wine, 
Over me that forgetful spell prevail. 
Be strong thy anodyne that it may steep 

All sense while earth shall fail ! 
Then dreaming, drifting, let me sweep 
Down the pale stream, beyond the horizon-line 
To sea, far o'er the unrelenting deep ! 



"FAR, FAR AWAY." 

CAR, far away from home's wide fields, youth 
* cries. 

O'er yonder misty range of mountains lies 
A lovelier land than this, — a land of ease, 
Morn-lit and murmurous with melodies 
That hint of slopes and groves of paradise. 

Across the deep man turns his ardent eyes. 
And says, " Earth's continents of bold emprise 
Are there beyond these wastes of sundering seas, 
Far, far away." 

When with soft pace death comes to loose these 

ties. 
Age looks away into the void and sighs, — 
'' Not here, but isled in vast infinity's 
Sidereal tracts, the fronds of Aidenn's trees, 
And New Jerusalem's white walls arise 
Far, far away." 



34 



MY PIPE. 

\1 7HEN the summer breeze steals thro' the trees, 
' ' And the sickle moon is low ; 
When o'er the hills the whippoorwill's 

Clear flutings come and go ; 
When the katydid, in the tree-top hid. 

Calls ever across the dark, 
And down the marsh where the frogs sing harsh 

The fire-fly lights its spark, — 

Then the golden crumbs for me ! 
My pipe and reverie ! 

The voices grand from childhood's land, 
And the scenes that used to be ! 

When the days are cold, and o'er the wold 

The winds of winter sweep ; 
When the darkness falls, and upon the walls 

The shadows dance and leap ; 
35 



36 MV PIPE. 

When the full moon shines thro' the snow-capped 
pines 

Where the midnight witches brew, 
While the embers die and the great owls cry 

Their weird ''tu-whit, tu-whoo ! " — 

Then my pipe and the crumbs of gold ! 
And the future's gates unfold ! 

Thro' the lifting haze rise the braver days 
That the untried seasons hold ! 



A REMINISCENCE. 

DLOW, pitiless Wind, 
'-^ Through the desolate world and gray ! 
More bright for thee fair June will be, 
When the storms have passed away. 

And sweep, merciless Wind, 

O'er life's harsh hills of snow ! 
More dear for thee that land will be 

Where never winds do blow. 



37 



THE HERO. 

nrO be a hero must you do some deed 
*• With which your name shall ring the world 

around ? 
With blade uplifted must you dare to lead 

Where armies reel on slopes with lightning 
crowned ? 

Or must you set for polar seas your sails, 

And chart the Arctic's silent realms, and gray ? 

Or drag your barge through virgin streams in pales 
Of undiscoved lands ? I tell you, Nay ! 

Who is earth's greatest hero ? He that bears. 
Deep buried in his kingly heart, his lot 

Of suffering ; and, if need be, he that dares 
Lay down his life for right, and falters not ! 



38 



LATE AT NIGHT. 

nr IS late at night. I hear the wandering Wind 
* Come up from distant hills and vales and 
seas ; 
I hear his spirit-wings sweep through the trees, 
His gentle tapping at each door and blind, 
His far-spent echo down the silent halls. 

And Memory soft as the night-wind steals 
From radiant reaches and from gulfs of dole. 
And faintly taps the portals of my soul : 

As whispering down its corridors she feels, 

She stirs the portraits hanging on its walls ! 



39 



THE REVIEW OF THE DEAD. 

'T WAS night. A lurid light 
Made field and wood seem of some other world. 
Before the rising winds the vapors whirled, 
Wild, spectre-like ; and in deep gulfs afar, 

Star after star 
Shone fugitive ; the white moon shuddered thro' 
The clouds that flew. 

elow, with dismal flow. 
The Shenandoah swept the hills between ; 
The boding night-wind woke with wings unseen 
The spirit murmurs in the shadowy pines ; 

And down their lines, 
Far off, in softest cadences of sound. 

The whispers wound. 

A Shade, in mist arrayed, 
Came in the winds o'er moorland, tarn, and scaur,- 
40 



THE REVIEW OF THE DEAD. 4 1 

His mantle streaming in the night, his war- 
Steed shod with silence, in his dusky hand 

A sabre, — and. 
As distant thunders on our slumbers fall. 

He made his call : — 

" Awake, lost legions ! Shake 
Oblivion's dreamless slumbers off ! Their threnes 
The pines sing o'er you now. The mock-bird 

preens 
Where ye are laid ; and round you, soft and clear. 

Year after year. 
Murmur sweet streams. All lull to rest. But come, 

I call you home ! " 

A sound that shook the ground 
Went forth through earth. 'T was like the hollow 

roar 
Of cannon, dying in the hills ; and o'er 
Night's broad expansions breathed the trumpet's 
tone. 

Blent with the moan 
Of winds. Faint strains of martial music stole 
Into the soul. 



42 THE REVIEW OF THE DEAD. 

Along the vale they throng, 
As clouds across the moon at midnight drift, — 
Dark, wavering volumes, fleecy scuds. With swift, 
Unechoing footfalls toward an awful hush 

On, on they rush ! 
The Vision raised his blade, and waved them on 

With, " Lo, the dawn ! " 

And anxiously the ranks 
Closed in dense columns down the misty vale, 
Battalion on battalion — riders pale 
On dim, mysterious chargers hurried past, 

And in that vast. 
Dumb pageant melted, as the stars, away 

Into the day. 

The Form upon his arm 
Bent low his head in grief. The mystic band 
Died in that river's roar, which through the land 
Seems blent with children's crying, and the moan 

Of widows lone 
Lamenting for the ones that glad the door 

Of home no more. 



A CHRISTMAS MEMORY. 

'T^HE hour is late, the fire is low, 
^ And eery winds from northlands' snow 

Around the eaves are moaning ; 
A spirit roams the world to-night 
From land to land, in silent flight. 

As fast as flies the dawning. 

The snow is tinkling through my blinds ; 
The owls, hid in the hooded pines. 

Their dolorous greetings render ; 
Back into other years I steal — 
A child, at mother's knee I feel 

That gracious hand and tender ! 

I hear — and how my bosom swells ! — 
I hear the neighboring village bells. 
Blent with the tempest's booming ; 
43 



44 A CHRISTMAS MEMORY, 

Out in the whirling snow I hear 
The muffled tramp of nimble deer — 
Old Santa Glaus is coming ! 

The rockets mount with trails of fire 
O'er roof and elm and lofty spire — 

Up, up to skyward winging ; 
Thank God for Ghristmas ! Man ne'er grows 
So old but that he loves the snows, 

And bells of Ghristmas ringing ! 



MY FOUNTAIN PEN. 

MY fountain pen, wherewith I write 
This would-be poetry to-night, 
Was bought me by my children dear 
With pennies picked up here and there- 
Each one contributing a mite. 

And now they claim that, in their sight, 
I make a rondeau to requite 

Them for the present given me here — 
My fountain pen. 

O Muse ! I 'm in a sorry plight. 

Come to my aid ! Help me indite 
The lines they crave, for I declare 
That fitting thoughts are nowhere near. 

For once endow with Dobson's sleight 
My fountain pen ! 



45 



THE HOME. 

/^ THOU that through thy panes dost look, and 
^^ yearn 

Beyond thine own familiar scenes to roam, 
Thy face is set away from all, — oh, turn ! 

The world is in the marvellous light of home ! 



46 



THE DEAD LAUREATE. 



TT IS bark lay long in the widening stream, so near 
■'• ■'■ The Infinite's dark Sea, 
Its throbs he felt, its murmurs seemed to hear, 
Caught its pure scents, and free ! 



II. 



But when the great tide ebbed, a freshening gale 
From zones we may not bound, 

Arose, and, catching, gently blew that sail 
Out toward the gulfs profound. 



III. 



Nor cried the wind, nor made the Sea its moan 

Upon the harbor bar. 
As out he drifted to the great Unknown, 

So far away — so far ! 



47 



THE PRAYER OF LIFE. 

T EAD me, O God ! in life's brave early day, 
*— ' While skies are clear and all the world is gay; 

So many hurtful blooms my vision greet ! 

So many paths diverge to lure my feet 
Far from thy peaceful, sinless road astray ! 

And when the morning can no longer stay, 
And songs are mute, and noontide's fervent ray 
Upon the weary track must fiercely beat. 
Lead me, O God ! 

Nor leave me when the eventide shall lay 
Upon life's happy fields its vapors gray : — 
Clasp then my hand in thine more close and 

sweet 
Than thou hast ever held it ; and, while fleet 
The night is falling, down the unknown way 
Lead me, O God ! 



48 



APRIL DAYS. 

T^HE bland south breezes o'er the fields are blow- 
* ing; 

The pine-tops strain them through and gently 
lean, 
Their roar like that of mighty rivers flowing 
Dim, distant hills between. 

The violets are blooming in the meadow 
Whose winding verge of greenery 1 trace ; 

Across the hills alternate shine and shadow 
Each other swiftly chase. 

I hear the jay's " e-lil-ick " in the bramble, 

The red-bird's note that mocks the purl of 
streams ; 
The little lambs out in the pasture gambol 
In the sun's amber beams. 
49 



50 APRIL DAYS. 

The blackbirds on a giant oak assemble, 

And blow their magic horns and elfin harps ; 

While from their low, sweet, silvery music tremble 
Their flute-like fiats and sharps. 

Far down the meads amid the calms and osiers 
The frogs all day long chant their soulless rote, 

But when the dusk reveals the sky's enclosures 
Comes up their sadder note. 

The water-beetles dance their waltzes mazy 
Upon the sheltered pond's unruffled breast ; 

Across the sky the loitering Wind, and lazy. 
Drives his cloud-flocks to west. 

The migratory birds in depths of azure 

Fade out to north in wavering, chain-like flight ; 

Or thunders from the storm-cloud's dark embrasure 
Roll as if Titans fight. 

And then, frail yet eternal, curved on heaven 
The bow of promise touches hills and waves 

As God outspreads his hands to earth forgiven, 
From out his cloudy sleeves ! 



APRIL DA YS. 5 I 

Once more the soul thrills with the firm conviction 
That life's dark winter leadeth on toward Mays, 

Transcending those that, as a benediction. 
Crown earth's glad vernal days ! 



WHEN SPRING AND WINTER MEET. 

OUT yesterday 

^— ' The skies were winter-gray. 

Toward night the flakes 

Across the frozen lakes 

And fields austere and uplands lone 

By driving winds were blown. 

To-day the skies 

Have tinct like Italy's. 

A scrap of blue, 

Winged, thrilled me as it flew 

Across the sunlit close aglee, 

Lilting, so merrily ! 



52 



THE SOUTHERN DEAD. 

A T midnight's lone, portentous hour, I dreamed, 

■**■ I stood beside a river's dismal flow : 
The boding night-winds made their cries of woe ; 

On some strange world, as 't were, the late moon 
beamed. 

A gray ghost, silence-shod, whose mantle streamed 
Upon the winds, came on the dark with slow. 
Dread pace, and on his trumpet wound such blow 

As rang to earth's remotest shores, it seemed. 

With fife and drum and bug>e's silver blast 
Upon a thousand fields his armies dead 
In one vast, shadowy parade did wake ! 

The hills found voice ; the dim, pale pageant passed. 
As if by deep, far thunder jarred, their tread 
Made the foundations of the world to shake ! 



53 



THE DREAMER. 

T^HE dreamer cried, " Oh that it once were mine 
* To build a song that should defy the years ! — 
One that should lift with hope those bowed in 
tears, 
And touch the wavering with a strength divine, — 
An all-puissant lay whose every line 

Should front some wrong as with a thousand 

spears. 
Or strike to mist the horde of lurking Fears 
That guard the keep where Truth immured doth 

pine." 
The while earth's children worn with care, and pale, 
Grieved for the light lost here forevermore, 
Each day went by him, wandering in despair. 
The blind unnoted passed him, and the frail ; 
Sin dwelt unchallenged near his very door ; 
And Error, mailed in guile, was castled there. 



54 



TERRA INCOGNITA. 

A GES ere great Columbus sailed away, 
^ So far away from Andalusia's quays ! — 

Myth told of Gardens of Hesperides 
That vague and formless toward the sunset lay. 
And we are told that toward life's setting day 

There lies a land enisled in crystal seas, 

Where scents of spice blow down its pleasant leas, 
And over sands of gold the waters play. 
As sailed brave Colon — but to come no more 

With charts of new-found worlds beyond the 
tide !— 

So we shall sail from life's dim, fleeting strand ; 
And, having passed each insubstantial shore. 

Shall find, where gates of sunset open wide. 

Supreme and permanent the Undiscovered Land ! 



55 



A BLOCK OF MARBLE. 

IT ERE sleep within this ponderous mass of stone 

■'■ * Athene, Venus of Milo, the enchained 
Mute Slave with patient smiling face and pained, 

And moulds of gods and goddesses o'erthrown. 

Ay ! bosomed in this one rugged block alone, 
Lie every figure Phidias wrought or feigned, 
All forms that Michaei Angelo attained, — 

All dreams to his supremest moments known. 

Yet, 'neath the sculptor's eyes one scheme is 
planned. 
Whereto he hews with patient touch and fine. 
And when it lives all others cease to be : — 

Symbol of life ! Lay hold with master hand ; 
With skilful strokes cut to that delicate line, 
Which sets some veined, immortal vision free ! 



56 



DIES IR^. 

" Dies irae, dies ilia, 
Solvet sgeclum in favilla." 

r^ REAT Day of Wrath whereof no mortal knows, 



O 



Nor angel nor archangel of high heaven 



Day when eternity's stillness shall be riven, 

And through the starry archipelagoes 

And rayless reaches, like the wave that flows 

From quaking continents, on shall be driven 

The trumpet-blast, and ever onward, even 

To tell on space's shores that time must close ! — 

When will it break ? When nature's springs shall 

fail, 
And stars go out, and all humanity 
In the even-tide of years to slumber bend ? 
Or will it rise when man has reached the scale 
Of godlike being ? Oh, to us, my friend, 
'T is one— soon, soon 't will dawn for you and me ! 



57 



AT FORDHAM. 

( The Ho?ne of Edgar Allan Foe.) 

]\10T here he dwelt, but down some path unknown 
^ ^ That vvinding sinks into night's spectral vale, 

Where prisoned, uneasy winds forever wail, 
And plangent seas on dolorous shores intone. 
His charmed, cloud-builded home was there up- 
thrown, 

Engirt by marsh and mere and wastes of bale ; 

No foot save his e'er trod those reaches pale ; 
His were those tracts abandoned, his alone. 
There with hushed breath he heard the thin, far 
strains 

Of Israfel steal through his haunted room, 

Or caught the nearer, clearer clank of chains : 
Now o'er him leaned Lenore in deathless bloom ; 

Now, while the blood slowed, freezing in his 
veins. 

Some goblin shivered in upon the gloom ! 



OUR RACE. 

"PROM marches far remote in time and space, 

-*■ Bournes of the formless, the primordial things, 
Stirred by some power as deep as nature's springs, 

Emerged the mighty caravan of our race. 

With lifted eyes and brave, unwavering pace, 
And hope amid the lonely sands that sings, 
We onward move despite the khamsin's stings, 

The waste round the mirage's spirit-base. 

Strange bedouins in time's desert-land profound. 
Whose camp-fires for a fleeting season gleam, 
Then, mouldering, mark our journey o'er the 
Vast ! 

Toward some far land our pilgrimage is bound. 
Where palm-fronds lift by many a healing stream, 
Where amaranths bloom, and toils are overpast. 



59 



THE LARGER LIFE. 

\1 7HAT if the dawning of this life be gray, 
^^ And dull its noon, and dolorous its eve. 
With never a song the shadows to relieve, 

Which coming night, o'er morn, in strength doth 
lay, — 

In the vast life 't is but a fleeting day, 

With brave, unnumbered morrows to retrieve 
Each little space when we could not but grieve 

For joy that left us lonely on the way. 

As to the child in earliest cradle-years 

The mother's face, which o'er it yearning bends. 
With visions distant and confused blends, 

So now are blurred Love's feature's to our eyes ; 

But we shall learn that face in other spheres. 

And understand these low, sweet lullabies. 



60 



TO A ONE-ARMED CONFEDERATE. 

'T'HOU hero ! that for four ensanguined years 
^ Didst face the battle's shattering shot and 
shell, 
And, though ten thousand at thy right hand fell, 
Not once didst waver with ignoble fears — 
Not once, at memory of thy home, and tears 

Of loved ones when, grief-crushed in mute fare- 
well. 
They yielded thee unto that awful hell 
Whose hot breath only now no longer sears ; — 
And then, when all had perished, scarred and 
maimed, 
With thy one hand thy ruins didst repair, 
And feed, the while, thy foeman from thy store,— 
To tell thy valor speech hath not been framed ! 
A more unfading chaplet thou shouldst wear 
Than e'er the bravest Gaul or Spartan wore ! 



ei 



"ONCE MORE THE FALL WITH EMPTY 
FIELDS, AND SAD." 

T^HE year once more is verging to its close ; 
•^ The monitory wind unresting grieves, 

And from the hedge, like startled birds, the leaves 
Are scattered far on every gust that blows. 
The blithe birds are departed with the rose 

That bloomed but now along the cottage eaves, — 

All save a few that 'mid the garnered sheaves 
In silence build against impending snows. 
Although beyond this gloom and dearth, you say, 

The spring will come with flower and bird and 
bee. 

And all these scenes forlorn again be glad, 
My soul keeps sighing this dark autumn day, 

The summer, too, must follow, and, ah me ! 

Once more the fall with empty fields, and sad ! 



62 



THE PROGRESSION OF THE SOUL. 

A S brave Columbus, drifting from that sea 
'*' Which mortal's keel had never dared before, 

Came breathless on the banks of Salvador 
With veils of silver mist on slope and lea, — 
So borne by winds and streams of destiny — 

But with no memory of our native shore — 

Do we emerge and life's vague land explore, 
Here on the outpost of eternity. 

He never dreamed those isles that dimly rose 
Upon his raptured vision skirt a land 
That spreads far as the zones of earth expand : — 

Sail on, O soul ! brave life's out-lying bars. 

For heaven's blazing archipelagoes 
Fringe continents wide as the range of stars. 



63 



IN AGE. 

A FTER dull days of cold December rain, 
^~*' When bloom and song and life seem far 
away, — 

Lost in some sweet, sad unreturning May 
Whose memory hurts the soul with keenest pain, — 
Sometimes these sombre hills and fields inane 

Resume the radiance of an earlier day ; 

And mirth revives as when at morning's gray 
The waking bird takes up its silenced strain ! 
So in the lonely winter of this life. 

When mornings break but dim, and gray and cold 

Eves fade, and songs are fugitive and few, — 
At times assuaged is the tempestuous strife. 

And all is brave once more, and stream and wold 

Assume the light of former years anew ! 



64 



AFTER READING A TREASURY OF 
SONNETS. 

\ /AGUE visions fill my brain to-night, — high 
^ deeds 

Round Ilium's shadowy wall ; old Memnon gray 
With vacant gaze looks toward the rising day, 

And breathes with mystic lips of ancient creeds. 

Through Morven's haunted halls my fancy leads. 
And Loda's spirit bends o'er me, — far away 
On unblessed shores, — through cities of Cathay, — 

By perilous passes where the eaglet feeds. 

Confusing sounds awake, — celestial strings. 
The clash of cymbals, tramp of armed bands, 
Songs fugitive from Pelion's height outblown : 

Round Anthemusia's slumberous island sings 
Brave Orpheus to his comrades, of home lands 
Dim-visioned long across the seas unknown. 



65 



THE DAWN OF ETERNITY. 

A S the swart children of the polar cold, 
^"^ Long months immerged in twilight's mourn- 
ful gray, 
Climb crags of ice, and, eager, look away 
O'er arctic wastes interminably out-rolled. 
Until with joy unbounded they behold 

The slow-returning sun's faint, earliest ray. 
Which, gaining, leads to one continuous day 
Whose firmament is all of orient gold, — 
So from life's wastes we climb upon the height. 
Knowing full well the dark may not endure ; — 
With such keen sight we scan the vast obscure. 
Till that far dawn, which comes and goes upon 
The low horizon, widens on our sight 
Into a day gilt with perpetual sun ! 



66 



BONAPARTE. 

T T E loved the fray as petrels love the sands 
^ ■'• And wave- worn rocks and ocean's stormy 
waste. 

It was his own calm home wherein he traced 
Vast empires he should found in puissant lands. 
Unblanched, while flashed a thousand levin-brands, 

Would he survey the battle's fiery haste ; 

And wheresoe'er with visage stern he faced, 
He pointed victory there with fateful hands. 
What though he walked an exile on the shore 

Of far Helena ? — a world-conqueror he ! 

In the tumultuous thunders of the sea 
He fought new battles, and his kindling glance 
Saw allied nations crushed, enslaved, and o'er 
Them all the lifted sword of victor France. 



67 



THE PAST. 

/^ YE that pine for the vanished years, as pined 

^-^ Odysseus for one glimpse of Hellas more ; 
That toward them lean, as toward their fading 
shore 

Poor exiles unto earth's far ends consigned — 

Lean to reclaim some echo which, confined, 

Bird-like shall sing in memory's mournful door, — 
Knovv this : life's earlier land lies on before — 

Not over widening seasons far behind ! 

And we shall find it in the great To-Be. 
It lapses not away, as to our eyes 
Doth seem, but swiftly and forever nears ! 

As brave Magellan who sailed the uncharted sea, 
Full circling earth, saw his home shores arise. 
So shall we come again on our lost, happy years ! 



68 



THE CLOSING CENTURY. 

A S one who, roused from sleep, hears far away 
'**■ The closing strokes of some cathedral bell 

Tolling the hour, strives all in vain to tell. 
If denser grows the night, or pales the day — 
So we, roused to life's brief existence, say - 

(We on whose waking falls a century's knell), 

Is this the deepening dusk of years, the fell 
And solemn midnight, or the morning gray ? 
We stir, then sleep again — a little sleep ! 

(Howbeit undisturbed by another's ring !) 

For though, measured with time, a century 
Is but a vanished hour tolled on the deep. 

Yet what is time itself ? 'T is but a swing 

Of the vast pendulum of eternity. 



69 



TO AN OLD OAK. 

DRAVE monarch of the forest, armies warred 
'-^ Around thee once ; the scathful shot and shell 

Like bolts of death among thy branches fell, 
And thee unto thine utmost being jarred. 
Yet thou, though wasted then and battle-scarred, — 

Seared even with the flaming breath of hell, — 

Art stanch er grown — and thou art typical 
Of this great Union in whose cause was marred 
Thy massive bole : — those wounds are healed, and 
all 

The closer for them now thy bark doth bind ; 

While 'neath thy corrugations so are twined 
And locked 'round many a deep-embedded ball 

The stern warped fibres of thy life, that vain 

Were brawniest blows to wedge thy heart in twain ! 



70 



THE SOUL. 

T^HE soul was planned in those primeval spheres, 
■'• Immeasurably beyond the range of thought 

Where, 'mid the formless, God in secret wrought, 
Framing the worlds, before the birth of years. 
Here, thrilled by vaguest memories, awed by fears. 

Just borne ashore from nameless seas of nought. 

Upon creation's outpost it hath caught 
The first, faint splendor of the tracts it nears. 
Uplift thine earth-bent eyes, O man, and learn 

The lore writ by the stars that whiten space ; 

There onward and forever lies thy race. 

Orion and old Arcturus blaze for thee ; 
For thee heaven's deepest-sunken sun doth burn — 

Behold thy mansions built from all eternity ! 



71 



IMAGINATION. 

D ACK through the chaos of the primal past, 

*— ' Upon unfailing wings she takes her flight, 
Or sounds the future's universal night 

'Mid worlds to elements resolved at last. 

The gates of death unclose, and down the vast 
Cloud-builded stairs she faces shapes that fright, 
Or wanders through Elysium's fields of light — 

For she would fain all pang, all bliss forecast ! — 

But she shall never on life's bourne — ah me ! 
If ever on that distant unknown shore ! — • 
Preen her adventurous pinions to explore 
The date of Him before whose veiled face 

The universe, with its eternity. 

Is but a mote a moment poised in space ! 



72 



AS SOME MYSTERIOUS WANDERER OF 
THE SKIES." 

A S some mysterious wanderer of the skies, 
**■ Emerging from the deeps of outer dark, 

Traces for once in human ken the arc 
Of its stupendous curve, then swiftly flies 
Out through some orbit veiled in space, which 
lies 

Where no imagination may embark, — 

Some onward-reaching track that God did mark 
For all eternity beneath his eyes, — 
So comes the soul forth from creation's vast ; 

So clothed with mystery moves through mortal 
sight ; 

Then sinks away into the Great Unknown. 
What systems it hath seen in all the past. 

What worlds shall blaze upon its future flight, 

Thou knowest, eternal God, and thou alone ! 



•73 



TO TWO FRIENDS. 

(l.) TO E. G. 

"CRIEND, in whose gentle face but once mine 

^ eyes, 

But once mine eyes in years forespent did gaze, 
Though dimmed those features be by lapsing days. 

As blues the veil, dropped from the lofty skies. 

Home lands to sea-bound ships, — wherever lies 
My path through this mysterious world's wide 

ways. 
My spirit will turn to thine as now it strays. 

Turn to thy kindly spirit till memory dies. 

As in the old years of romance, and brave, 

The castled maid would throw the stream a rose 
To bear some kindred soul held far apart. 

So would I lean above time's silent wave. 

And toss for thee the fairest flower that blows 
In friendship's close, with greetings from my 
heart ! 



74 



(ll.) TO T. B. K. 

A ND thou benign, most venerable one, 
^^ Howbeit mine eyes have never met thine 
own. 
But whom nathless I know, by whom am known 
As son his father e'en, and father, son, — 
Lest ne'er our kindred souls may meet upon 
Time's shadow bourne, this song for thee is 

thrown 
On winds about the world forever blown. 
With bravest cheer for thee till life be done ! 
As with thought fixed on one, each limb astrain, 
Sped down the course the Olympian racer fleet, 
With leaning form and tense hand toward the 
prize, 
So, if 't were mine the goal e'er to attain, 
I 'd cast the laurel earned before thy feet 
For that I raced nerved by thy kingly eyes ! 



75 



MY LIBRARY. 

AT times these walls enchanted fade, it seems, 
And, lost, I wander through the Long Ago,— 
In Edens where the lotus still doth grow, 
And many a reedy river seaward gleams. 
Now Pindar's soft-stringed shell blends with my 
dreams. 
And now the elfin horns of Oberon blow, 
Or flutes Theocritus by the wimpling flow 
Of immemorial amaranth-margined streams. 
Gray Dante leads me down the cloud-built stair, 
And parts with shadowy hands the mists that 

veil 
Scarred deeps distraught by crying winds for- 
lorn ; 
By Milton stayed, chaotic steeps I dare, 
And, with his immaterial presence pale, 
Stand on the heights flushed in creation's morn ! 



76 



"ONCE AS I LAY UPON A BED OF PAIN." 

/^NCE as I lay upon a bed of pain, 
^-^ Wherefrom the morning brought me no re- 
lease, 
Nor noon's brave light, nor evening's holy peace, 
That broods as broad as night o'er hill and 

plain, — 
The thought kept running through my fevered 
brain : 
If so it be my days of life must cease, 
To whom in all the earth, as years increase, 
Shall these my loved ones turn, nor turn in vain ? 
A spirit-echo, breathed across the sky's 
Immeasurable distance, stilled my fears. 
And with a firm conviction ruled my soul. 
Then first I knew that in eternity's 

Unshadowed morn we'll find life's pangs and 

tears 
Parts of some large, divine-appointed whole. 



77- 



"NATIONS OF EARTH, WITH ONE FIRM 
PURPOSE RISE." 

|\]ATIONS of earth, with one firm purpose rise, 
^ ^ And visit with vengeance fell the Ottoman 

race ! 
Strike! for with craven blade, and lust more 

base, 

They slay till lamentations fill the skies. 

Do ye not hear those last, despairing cries. 
And see the anguish graven on every face ? 
And still ye stand fear-froz'n, beneath disgrace, 

While, stabbed, your brother reels and sinks and 
dies ! 

Awake ! that blood demands you from the dead, 
And Pity pleads to you on bended knees 
With eloquence of prayer that hath no name ! 

Delay no more, or go with cringing tread, 

And face henceforth incarnadined with shame, 
Scorned of the world, adown the centuries ! 



78 



THE POET. 

TIE is not bound by life's expiring years ; 

-*■ ■'• All times are his ; — nor is his spirit stayed 
By earth's sea-sundered shores, — nay ! past its 
shade 

Far out toward distant other worlds he steers ! 

Beyond the utmost cruise of ships, in spheres 
Of sea wherefrom the glamour ne'er shall fade, 
His isle, whose base is in enchantment laid, 

Like Prospero with wizard wand he rears. 

He hears the deep ^Eonian Paean roll, 

Timed to the movements of the journeying stars, 
Whereto the bravest strain that ever went 

Elusive through imperial Shakespeare's soul 
Was but the perishing wail Lind's music jars 
From the thrilled strings of some near instru- 
ment ! 



79 



THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE. 

AS wrought those Tyrian builders far away 
In Lebanon's sombre glens and quarries lone, 
Shaping the massive beam, the rugged stone 
By lines some master architect did lay, — 
Ceasing, methinks, at times in doubt to say, 

" Wherefore this toil ? " — though framing that un- 
known 
White fane that rose in silence, and outshone 
The bastioned clouds adown the westering day ; — 
So in the world's dim, far-sequestered gloom. 

Oft murmuring in our spirits, " Wherefore, ah 



me 



The work of these poor ineffectual hands ? " 
We shape our parts of temples that shall loom 
Upon our eyes when, in eternity, 
The heavens fall back from those enduring lands. 



80 



THEOCRITUS. 

T TPON the arm of Time his hand he laid, 

^ And claimed with all-compelling power his 
eyes ; 
The gray, unsleeping spirit with fierce surprise 

In his destroying course a moment stayed. 

" Grant me this guerdon, ravening Time," he prayed, 
" That through the future's dateless centuries 
The light from off these valleys, fields, and skies, 

Until thy reign be past, may never fade ! " 

Years have not scathed those immemorial springs ; 
On swaths of thymy grass and osier-shoots 
By wimpling streams Theocritus pipes to-day ; 

Unhurt down vales of amaranth Thyrsis sings, 
And Pan's clear syrinx calls, and far away 
O'er sweet Sicilian fields the shepherds' fifes and 
flutes ! 



8i 



WASHINGTON. 

IVT O chill benumbed his spirits when wintry skies 

^ ^ Above his tattered tents brooded so gray ; 
He saw not the dense wilderness that lay 

Round him, nor death that lurked in many a guise. 

Beyond those years with clear, prophetic eyes 
He gazed into the future far away. 
And saw a puissant land whose perfect day 

Lies veiled yet in the unborn centuries. 

For this he faced the foeman, and alas ! 

Felt what was far more keen than foeman's steel — 
Such stings of calumny as never heal ; — 
Nor ever once in his great soul dreamed he 

That while the world's long generations pass 

All tongues should name him Father of the Free ! 



82 



THE UNATTAINED. 

'T'HE marble, bosomed in the mountain hoar, 
* Holds in its heart, waiting some hand most 
skilled, 
Forms featured fairer yet than that which thrilled 

And moved beneath Pygmalion's touch of yore. 

The instrument's keys await a grander score 
Than that whose faintest echoes, haply, chilled 
Mozart with rapture, and an instant stilled 

His breath, then died away forevermore. 

There is a scene no painter ever feigned, 

Of Eden's restful fields — lost visions loved ! — 
Dead shores where tempests hoarse, Titanic roll ; 

A song unsung more sweet than that which chained 
The heart of Hades' King — than ever moved 
The subtlest chord in Shakespeare's lofty soul ! 



83 



" WHEN THROUGH A MIGHTY LENS WE 
SEARCH THE NIGHT." 

\\7HEN through a mighty lens we search the 
*^ night, 

Gathering the lost rays of far-distant spheres, 
We catch the beams shed in long-vanished years ; 

For many an age has passed since that faint light 

First outward sped in its amazing flight : 

Then what of heavens whose splendor disappears, 
As fail Sahara's streams, before it nears 

The utmost limit of man's armed sight ! 

From some far central world among the stars. 
Our disembodied spirits, fathoming space 
With godlike ken, may watch forevermore 

Sun, system start from elemental wars — 

See earth — its pageants move, ourselves in place — 
As the light breaks on that far sidereal shore. 



84 



UPON THE DEATH OF A CHILD. 

{From the Gernurn of Uhland^ 

\1 7ITH soft pace thou didst come and go, 
' ' A fleet wraith in this earthly land ; 
Whence ? ah ! whither ? We only know : 
From out God's hand, into God's hand 



85 



HOMER. 

T^HAT conjuring name doth change the centuries, 
And the enchanted pagan world restore ! 

Old Triton and the Nereids sport before 
Poseidon's chariot storming down the seas. 
Pan blows his mellow reed, and to the breeze 

The nautilus unfurls his sail once more ; 

While silver voices wake the waters o'er 
'Mid asphodels on Anthemusia's leas. 
I hear the Odyssey and Iliad rise 

With deeper rhythm than that of Chios' surge, 

And there upon the blue ^gean's verge, 

Unchanging while the centuries increase, 
After three thousand years, before me lies 

The unveiled shore of old sea-cinctured Greece ! 



$6 



"SOME VERSES CAROL." 

QOME verses carol blithely as a bird, 

^ And hint of violet and asphodel ; 
While others slowly strike a funeral bell, 

Or call like clarionets till, spirit-stirred. 

We hear the mustering tramp in every word. 
In some, the ocean pounds with sledges fell, 
Or Neptune posts with blare of trumpet-shell 

By shores that visionary seas engird. 

As soft as flutes, they croon the lullabies 
Of cradle-years ; play clear as citherns ; wail 
Like harps ^olian in the grieving wind ; 

Some are the deep-drawn human moan by pale 
And silent faces, — 'neath lack-lustre skies, — 
Peering through panes on darkness unconfined 



87 



SHAKESPEARE. 

IT E heard the Voice that spake and, unafraid, 

* ■'■ Beheld at dawning of primeval light 
The systems flame to being, move in flight 

Unmeasured, unimagined, and unstayed. 

He stood at nature's evening and surveyed 
Dissolved worlds, — saw uncreated night 
About the universe's depth and height 

Slowly and silently forever laid. 

Down the pale avenues of death he trod, 

And trembling gazed on scenes of hate that chilled 
His blood, and for a breath his pulses stilled, — 

Then clouds from sun-bright shores a moment 
rolled 
And blinded glimpsed he One with thunder shod, 
Crowned with the stars, and with the morning 
stoled ! 



88 



IN THE LIGHTHOUSE AT POINT LOOK- 
OUT, NORTH CAROLINA. 

UPON these dreary bars the ocean rolls, 
Billow on billow and forevermore ! 

Age after age, with unremitting roar, 
They curl and break and churn on sands and shoals. 
What means that deep-voiced dolorous monotone ? 

Chants it a dirge o'er its unnumbered dead ? 

O'er empires that once flourished where its bed 
Now slopes to depths unfathomed and unknown ? 
Or, haply, is 't a monster's vicious tones, 

Crouching to spring upon its prey, I hear — 

Waiting to swallow up earth's mighty thrones. 
And raise new worlds from its own gloomy sphere ? 

Or sobs, perchance, man's kingdoms to efface, 

Only to whelm again some distant race ? 



89 



AN ACROSTIC. 

A ME LI A, tender child with golden hair, 
'**' More precious far to me than purest gold, 
Evening with all its starry skies outrolled 
Lacks its full lustre when thou art not near ! 
If thou art absent, howsoever fair 
And calm the morn may be, 't is joyless, cold !— 
Stay with me, and the year can ne'er grow old — 
To-morrows never promise joys more dear ! 
O changing years, that mast all mortals change. 
Come with slow pace to guide her steps away — 
Kind years that blessed me thus in life's great 

wild! 
And when you must lead forth to pathways 

strange, 
Restrain her onward-hurrying feet, I pray — 
Deal tenderly forever with my child ! 



90 



TO M. L. S. 

T F by some marvellous language I could trace 

^ The beauteous semblance of thy gentle form — 
Could make it all-suffused with life, and warm, — 

Thy very stature, posture, movement, face ; 

If I could add to this thine every grace, — 

Thy guileless heart, thy faith, thy tone, thine arm 
Of love when life grows dark with night and 
storm — 

Portray thee truly in thy perfect place ; 

Then could I name the breadth and depth and 
height 
Of my love for thee, that the world might know 
All that thou art to me, sweet presence pure, 

A monument to thy memory I should write 
More fair than that by Jumna's sacred flow. 
And one that long as the pyramids would endure. 



91 



SELF-EXILED. 

\17ITH thee, O Muse, by storied streams, 
^ ' Far, far away from care and cavil, 
Past cruise of ships and chart of dreams, 

In years forespent oft did I travel ; 
And softer pipes there have I heard 

Than e'er were blown by Syracusan, 
And sweeter strings my soul have stirred 

Than woke by fountains Arethusan. 



I sought to sing my visions clear — 

Thy face and raiment lit with glory — 
The world stayed not a breath to hear 

That which was deemed an idle story ; 
And then in one mute, cold farewell 

I turned me fiercely from thy portal, — 
And lost were vales of asphodel 

And reaches pranked with blooms immortal. 
92 



SELF-EXILED. 93 

A mendicant without thy gate, 

From earth's hard ways, with feet a-bleeding 
I come to-night, all desolate, 

With penitent tears and nameless pleading, — 
Give me to hear thy citherns play, 

Thy mellow flutes o'er fields Elysian, — 
Once more through those lost lands to stray, — 

And I will guard each strain and vision ! 



